Yesterday I was not able to post, so I am writing for two days.

Yesterday started our pretty much as a normal day.  I had slept all night for the first time since our arival here. I feel so much better after a good night’s sleep.  It was misty and cool in the morning, but quickl warmed up. I had my devotions in our room with the window open and then decided that I could move to the screened in porch at the main house.  I sat there to write post cards. After I finished the cards, we went to town and stopped by the post office.  I got the stamps without even standing in a que. and they even had the stamps.  Quite different from 20 years ago.

While writing my post cards, I was watching the bird bath. I was so happy to observe a Purplecrested Loerie or Turaco. This bird has a  purple crest with dark blue and green on its body.  The wings are bright red.  The Swazi royalty use these featherss for their hair.  It is a large bird.

Yesterday we also did more shopping for the big meals next week.  We came home to make dinner only to learn two guests were coming to spend the next few nights.   We were expecting them for dinner but not for the night. They are two missionaries from England with CLC (formerlyChristian Literature Crusade).  One is a long time friend of the Stavs.  We also had a TWR missionary from Johannesburg at the meal.

Today we went to the transmitter site to do some cleaning.  I got to drive aToyota Venture. It was fun to drive on the dirt roads and use a stick shift again :-).  Larry hasn’t driven here yet.

While at the site, I cooked up the meat for next week and walked over the suspension bridge.  It’s a long bridge and fairly high.

I had a look at the transmitter building and it is looking very nice with the new transmitter and other improvements.  I was quite impressed with the look of it all.  While there, I walked past a door with all kinds of gadgets around it and as I walked past, the door slid open all by its self. I thought perhaps a mad scientist lived behind that door, but it was only Hans Van Kampen.  He  had rigged up the door with an eye of some sort that  opened the door whenever anyone walked by.  He was also quite proud of the robot that he had built.  It manuvered quite well and he had a camera mounted on it,  but the camera was not working yet. I don’t know what his plans are for it.

We stopped by the Christian Bookstore to pick up some cards and happened to meet Dr. Hynd there.  He was our doctor for many years.  We will be having dinner with him next week.  He is full of stories of the history of Swaziland, having grown up here.  He is now about 84 years old.  It was good to see him.

Lorraine and I took a chair and a stool to the Manzini Manzini Industrial Training Center to be repaired.  It took 30 minutes for them to recover the stool and fix the chair.  It cost about $10 and that included the foam and fabric for the stool.  They did a good job.

The wildlife for today was a lizard and a Guinea fowl.

Today Chuck Sauders arrived from Johannesburg to install the ducting for the heat exchanger.  This involves knocking a hole through the wall behind the transmitter and installing a louvre.  As a result of the covering of the transmitter to keep out dust and the work on the transmission line, work on the transmitter is quite restricted.  The rest of the connections to the SSM modules have been tightened.  Also the tiny 6-32 screws for the trim around the control panel were finally found, so was able to install those pieces of trim. 

The engineering staff here is wanting to use air conditioned and filtered air for the inside of the transmitter cabinets.  To do this they want to use outside air only for cooling the ‘radiators’.  They want to recirculate all the other air.  This is relatively straight forward except for the air that passes over the SSM modules.  They are hoping to accomplish this by rotating the associated blower 90 degrees so that the air is exhausted into the room.  This will require some additional baffling in the intake plenum.  It will also require doubling the  air flow of the second heat exchanger blower and changing the baffling into the heat exchangers.  Part of this morning I spent researching blower and motor combinations that might work for this application.

Something special happened today.  We were able to visit two of the farmers neighboring the TWR site that I had known for many years.  Steve and I were invited to lunch with Harry Lourens.  His wife Molly managed to get off from her job with Dr. Hynd to be there, too.  Harry manages a farm for the Howe family.  In addition to cattle, they raise potatoes and they were in the process of ‘lifting’ them while we visited.  Tons of potatoes are bagged each day during harvest.  They are high quality and many are purchased by Simba chips in South Africa.  Another enterprise that they have undertaken is production of charcoal.  Harry took us on a tour of their latest project of raising chickens.  They have five large building with 20,000 chickens in each building.  They start with day old chicks and they are ready for processing in 36 days.  No hormones are used but growth is faster because lighting is used for 22 hours per day to encourage eating.  They are meticulous in disinfecting the buildings before starting more chicks and we disinfected the boots we were required to use anytime we entered or left a building.

This morning I woke with the feeling that jet lag might finally be over!

Hans Steve, and Klaus (front-to-back)

Today Klaus started to retighten all the connections to the SSM modules and, with additional help later from Hans and Steve, was about 3/4 done by the end of the day.  I installed the shims under the lower trim pieces, the trim pieces that go each side of the hallway and the cover plates and air filters for the air plenum (after making a correction in the way the air plenum pieces had been previously assembled).  Assembly is nearly done except for installing the doors and connecting the water lines to the auxiliary ‘radiators’.  This will wait until the transmission lines are completed to prevent damage to the doors from working

Salema and Bongani working on feedline

overhead and/or tripping over the water lines while the Swazi crew continues working on the transmission line duct. 

Impala

On the way to the site this morning we came across a ‘herd’ of at least eight impala on the road.  A day or so earlier we had seen a duiker in about the same location.  Steve pointed out later that the impala were on TWR property. 

Guinea Fowl

As we got closer to the site, we saw a large ‘flock’ of guinea fowl in the cleared area around the antennas.  Since the last 8.5 kilometers of road is gravel and runs through a ranch, we are always seeing cattle in the road (or evidence of them having been there!).  Dodging this evidence can be a real test of one’s driving skills!!

Virginia under bougainvillea at Guava Gallery

Today was a busy day.  Lorraine had a doctor’s appointment in Mbabane, so after doing three loads of laundry and hanging them out on the line, we took off up the mountain.  Her appointment was at the same clinic where Samuel and Joshua were born (our grandson Mark was also born there). It is undergoing quite a facelift.  It now has nice tile floors and tile half way up the walls.  They have a new brick paved entrance and exit and paved parking lot.  They are building on a new entrance that has a lot of nice glass windows.  It also looked very clean.

After our stop at Mbabne Clinic, we went to lunch at the Guava Gallery.  We had mushroom omlets for lunch with a salad and homemade bread.  Besides having a little eating place, Guava Gallery sells hand made jewlery.  They use silver and gold and make their own design sometimes incorperating gem stones.  So far I haven’t spent any money there!.  They also have beadwork, painting and other crafts for sale.   The  bougainvillea lined veranda where we ate has a lovely view of a mountain in Milwane Nature Park.

After we left the Guava Gallery we stopped at a Pick and Pay shopping mall.  We didn’t go into the Pick and Pay, but visited some of the small shops around it.  They were quite interesting and I bought a big bag of macadamia nuts for one dollar.  Now for the fun of cracking and eating them.

We took the “old road” back to Manzini. It was fun to see familiar land marks.  We then stopped at the bulk food store and priced some items for the two big meals we are catering next week. Next Tuesday, I think I will be going to a Bible study.  It was canceled for today.  Please pray that I will be an encouragement to those I meet and will tknow and take the opportunities given me to share Christ.

Work progressed well on the transmitter today.  Klaus finished virtually all the wiring.  Hans installed the tube, blocking capacitor, plate choke and B+ filtering components.  I spent a large portion of my day advising others in doing wiring and building the transmission line which has a rather complicated bend.  I also installed the balun capacitors (with some help lifting the assembly into position) and HV cable.  We are looking for the instructions for making the stress cone to finish the HV cable connection.

I decided to check the wiring on the SSM modules to see that the bellville washers were installed properly.  Its a good thing because, although the washers were OK, the connections we not as tight as they should have been.

Hopefully the shims under the bottom trim pieces will be done tomorrow as there was too much activity around the transmitter to get it done today.  Also, all 192 connections to the SSM modules will need to be tightened tomorrow — a big task.  Also hope to start installing the modulator doors, when the transmission line is completed.